The present invention relates to devices for introducing an additive material into a water closet.
Before the present invention, a various assortment of devices have been proposed for introducing additives into water closets. Water closets used with such devices generally have a tank for retaining a supply of water which passes out of the tank into a bowl of the water closet during flushing of the closet. The tanks are provided with covers which must be removed to obtain access to the inside of the tanks.
The prior art additive devices have suffered from a number of deficiencies. In the past such devices have been placed inside the tanks, and the bulky tank covers must thus be removed from the tanks each time a unit or replacement part thereof is positioned in the tank. Some of the devices are placed on the tank bottoms, and the user necessarily wets his hands with tank water during removal of the devices from the tanks. The user's hands may also become stained with the coloring dye utilized in the devices, and the tank water and dye may also be inadvertently spilled outside the tank during removal. Many of the devices are difficult to place in the tanks due to their relatively large bulk or due to limited space in the tanks. Replacement of devices which are located on the tank bottom may require flushing the water closet twice, once during removal of the used device and once during placement of the new device.
It has also been found that previous devices frequently release either too large or small an amount of additive material into the tank water. In the former case, the large amount of release results in waste of the additive material and discoloration of the water, while in the latter case the device does not serve its intended purpose. Some of the devices are provided with valves which occasionally become separated from the devices in the tanks, resulting in inoperability of the devices and possible damage to the water closet by the valves. Since the additive materials in such devices are normally placed directly into the relatively large volume of water retained in the tanks, the use of deodorizers in such additive materials would normally not be effective, since they become diluted by the large volume of water.